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From the company’s website: Szanto (pronounced Sahn-tow) is a new collection of vintage inspired timepieces. This American brand’s essence was conceived in California, where Szanto designers were captivated […]

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From the company’s website:
Szanto (pronounced Sahn-tow) is a new collection of vintage inspired timepieces.
This American brand’s essence was conceived in California, where Szanto designers were captivated by the beauty and simplicity of old military watch designs from the early 20th century. These classic watches possess so much character but are too petite by contemporary standards.
Over the past few years, there has been a trend toward “vintage” that can be seen in all types of merchandise, and is very much present in the watch trade … particularly in the expensive luxury sector.
Szanto recognized an opportunity to update vintage designs of the past for today’s world, with larger sizes and the addition of quartz movements for improved accuracy and affordability, thereby making the collection accessible to a much wider audience.
Journey back in time with Szanto to the “Golden Age of Travel” – a time when craftsmen took pride in the quality of their workmanship, and a time when travel, whether by ocean liner, steam train or motor car was perceived as an adventure. Steamer trunks covered with stickers from exotic destinations like London, Cairo, Prague, Paris, Singapore, & Shanghai were common and iconic. In keeping with this tradition, each Szanto watch comes packed in its own mini travel trunk.

The packaging is unique and cool especially for a watch at this price point. Usually you get the plain standard watch box. The watch box included with the 6200 series looks like a vintage travel case from yesteryear which goes along with their motto “time rediscovered”. The packaging definitely holds true to this. The top of the box is signed with Szanto and the logo. The box itself has the look of vintage leather with detailed metal reinforced corners. Inside the box the inside of the box lid also features the Szanto name and logo. Normally I just throw my watch boxes in a closet, but this box I would actually keep out on display. It does look nice sitting on a desk as an added decoration and use it as storage for spare change, mints, paper clips, etc…

The Case:

The case of the 6200 series is 44mm 316L stainless steel case with a high polished finish. The design of the case has a great vintage feel. There is some very nice coin edging around the fixed bezel that adds a touch of dress/class to this watch. With the high polished finish and vintage look, the 6200 can easily transition into the work/office environment.

The onion style crown is a nice size that is easy to grasp and pull out/in. I personally would have liked a screw down style crown which is detail that I am nit picky about having. The crown does function as it should. When the crown is pushed all the way in this allows you to manually wind the watch. A feature that is more pleasing to me as a fun feature than a functional one since it has a self winding rotor inside. But I am sure you can agree, there is something very satisfying when you can manually wind a watch. Pulling the crown to the first position allows you to set the date and pulling the crown all the way out to the third and final position allows you to set the time.

The vintage style welded wire lugs are something quite unique. Very reminiscent of the watch cases that were made by Panerai during World War 2 that featured Rolex movements inside. The difference on the 6200 series is that Szanto uses removable spring bars to hold the strap on the lugs, where on the military issued WW2 watches the lungs were a solid bar and the strap watch stitched permanently onto the watch. Szanto does pull the look off here and you can’t really tell until you really examine the lugs to see that there are spring bars there.

The lugs are short which allows the 6200 series watch to wear much smaller than the 44mm dimensions. The watch wears more like 40-42mm and its low profile also helps it wear smaller.

The screw down case back features the Szanto logo and name along with some info about the watch: 100 meters, 316l stainless steel, 21 jewels, Japan automatic movement.

The Dial:

The dial has some nice details to it that I really enjoy. The vintage guilloché style detailing that holds true to the vintage theme of this watch. Guilloché is a very precise and intricate detailing that is a repetitive design that used to be done meticulously by hand. When you angle the dial to a light source you can see the nice texturing and detail of the guilloché. I thoroughly enjoy this detail on the 6200 series.

The hands also have that vintage style look to them with the stained glass look. The hands are very beautiful on the 6200 series, and they have a great deal of lume coating that allow the hands to glow bright at night. The hands hour and minute hand are white in the center and blue along the edges. I know blued hands were a vintage technique that is done bu heating the metal to a high degrees but the blue color doesn’t really go with the rest of the look of this watch. The blue color sticks out, black edges would have looked better here. That’s just my opinion here.

The white hour markers are coated with lume and feature numbers 1 through 12. The lume on the numbers is a bit disappointing, but the lume on the hands is quite nice. Above the hours is a white printed train track style minute markers. The black dial is the perfect backdrop for the white printing on the dial. This combo makes for a very legible dial. The seconds are counted on a small seconds sub-dial between the 4 and 5 o’clock markers. There is also a 24hr sub-dial at the 9 o’clock marker. Both sub-dials are lined with chrome detailing and printed white numbers. This detail should have been carried over to the date window at the 3 o’clock marker. The date window is framed in white, with a white date wheel and black printed numbers.

The dial features just a small amount of text which is under the 12 o’clock hour marker and the 7 o’clock hour marker. The name Szanto is located under the 12 o’clock hour marker and in nice cursive writing the word Automatic in above the 7 o’clock hour marker. I would have liked to seen Szanto printed in the same cursive writing. There is a lot going on with this dial, and these little suggestions would have brought some uniformity to the dial making it less busy. Don’t get me wrong the dial is my favorite part of this watch it just needs a little cleaning up.

The Strap:

The black leather strap is nice and thick, with some crackling detailing. It’s very soft and conforms to the wrist nicley right out of the box. Sometimes a new leather strap is stiff and hard which makes the breaking in period very uncomfortable, but that is not the case with this strap especially with the smooth as butter wrist side of the strap. The buckle is polished stainless steel and is signed with Szanto. There are two keepers on the strap, one is fixed and the other is free moving. The under side of the long portion of the strap is stamped with genuine leather and the short portion is stamped with Szanto.

The Movement:

The movement is Japanese automatic movement features 21 jewel movement w/ 2 Hands, small seconds and 24 Hr sub-dials and a date wheel. I am not sure exactly what movement is used here. During my review process I timed the movement on the 6200 series and it was at +/- 20 seconds per day. You can either manually wind this watch via the crown or allow the rotor of the automatic movement do the work.

Conclusion:

The 6200 is a vintage themed watch that has a dress watch feel and look. The case on the 6200 is absolutely beautiful and unique. I like it’s throwback nod to the watches of WW2. The welded wire lugs are great and something I haven’t experienced in a very long time. Something I find refreshing on this watch. The dial is full of some good details, but it could have been brought from just good to great had Szanto did what I nit picked about. The blue hands look out of place on this watch. It might work better on the white dial version of this watch, but with the black dial it just misses the mark here.

I do like the fact that Szanto decided to go with an automatic movement for the 6200 series rather than a quartz movement. Manually winding this watch is very addicting. The watch does wear smaller that 44mm so if you are concerned that 44mm is too big, it wears more like a 40-42mm watch, but the dial is still big and very readable.

If you are on a budget and looking for something different that has a great vintage feel that can work both on the weekend and at the office, then look no further than the 6200 series from Szanto. You get an awesome vintage case with an automatic movement with a dial packed full of detail.

A special thank you to Szanto for allowing me to review the watch, it was an absolute pleasure and an honor.

Additional pictures:

For reference my wrist is 7 1/2″

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I fell in love with watches when I was a small child and I would listen to my grandfathers pocket watch ticking. It's been an obsession ever since. Dive watches are my true love. I've been actively involved in the watch universe for over 15 years, trying to contribute what I can, where I can. Spreading my knowledge , but more importantly learning new things from other WIS. Thanks for looking at my blog. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact me. Follow the blog via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TimetoBlog-Watches-473321089483105/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/timetoblog_watches/